Land of Pictures 8
Sitemap Picture Commentary Continued PAGE 8 : --- MORE MORE Incredibly Amusing Pictures (best part of this wiki) I can only conclude that this machine was built by Ryan to look impressive, instead of having any particular proper functionality. Big boiling water tubes aren't acting as pistons, and the steam spraying out is ludicrously insufficient to turn anything a 100th of this monstrosity's size (and real turbines are internal). The base stage can't contain molten rock - that would be a great way to fill the thing solid and have it fail after the first 30 seconds of operation as the rock cooled and solidified (I would rather have that be Bioluminescent glow of algae in superheated water). PCC (Presidents’ Conference Committee) streetcar from early 1930s. Streamlined. I really don't know what the Apollo Square/Olympus Heights level designer was thinking for that trolley/tram/streetcar. Autos in a modern City : They just couldn't make the equivalent for Rapture. I guess we have to be content with a European style transportation with trams and AE subway for the majority and Fancy Bathyspheres/Subs for the wealthy. Niced lived in look ... More desk lamp fun. Maybe the MMORPG would have a wizard tool to allow Players to create their own Art Deco style lamps like this (some Player would come up with that tool to 'make it so' - thats the power of the modular system the MMORPG is based on). Another example of an era design Trolley. Designed for street trackage. Its actually a caricature (at Disneyland), as the real Pacific Electric cars (which ran in LA) were twice as long. Automated receptionist might have a much more lucrative career as an auto-blackjack/poker dealer in Rapture's Casinos (or as an auto-bartender or product demonstrator). THAT Kinda simpleton storyline that has McClendon drinking himself to death over a single failed project (Automated Little Sisters) OR that the project would Fail in so stupid a manner (allegedly plowed all his money into a project before the most basic element was proven) -- is typical for the game. I Could see these goons sitting in a circle sewing up their little gettups. Maybe Splicers were this insane, but then Ryan's "Security Forces" are seen dressed about the same. It is a continuation of the dim ignorance in Infinite BS about how Police/Military equip themselves. Padding doesn't stop bullets and guns work just fine to handle "Splicers who bring a knife to a gunfight". Putting a bag over your head and being encumbered is a great way to get yourself killed, when a primary aspect of fighting is maneuverability, visibility and speed. The whole Skyline regurgitation into Rapture in BaSx seems to have little real function -- added simply to allow use of that game mechanic (and the chainsaw-like hand weapon) without any real thought or effort being put into it (little enough of that in Infinite BS). Technology of that era (a pre-Dreadnought) Reality is that Fink would know hardly anything more complicated than this (and this is what Rosalind supposedly used to make 'Quantum' particles/whatever). Hundreds/thousands of unavailable/uninvented technologies/materials/tools make the game's premise a joke (why I call it being Fantasy more than Harry Potter, which at least has consistent logic to its magic and doesn't pretend to be based on science). Caveman Fink probably grabbed this through a Tear (imagination at work - Fink (in the game) should have had a warehouse full of unused things like this which he grabbed/stole but couldn't figure out or make use of). What happens when Cats get a hold of the Quantumz technologies first... Gumballs dropped from 15000 feet reach a velocity of the Speed of Sound ... Pocket TV in Rapture - made possible by the good ole Bio-Electronic revolution started by McClendon. Notice its in Black and White - you can't have everything perfect you know when you allow technological accelerations. Funny thing is : That the very first attempts at TV had resolutions like that and still amazed people (the image moving looked more impressive than this snapshot). This actually would have made a good machine for composing those Marquee message things ("FLASH - JAPANESE ATTACK PEARL HARNBOR, HAWAII") used back in the 30s/40s. With ADAM thrown into the mix - there's no knowing what all Fink might come up with ... (actually - imagine something like this instead of those stupid 'Boys of Silence'... I think they tried too hard to come up with something iconic). The New 'Automatic' Servitors (which Fink was developing to eliminate the lower-order underlings/workers from Columbia) were a little off putting (ex- their mechanical visages) -- So fink would add some more aesthetic masks to be less disturbing to the women and children ... Art Deco style - this looks like it was 3D printed (keep an eye open for that technology and how it will be combined with computer games) Everything is better with Radium (back in the Teens and Twenties...) An early Plastic, Bakelite, was starting to be used to cast such home appliances/devices. Young Frankenstein reference... Reason why Songbird was little more than a HUGE pigeon in Columbia ... Amusing would have been Songbird in a Tux and Tophat and Cane doing 'Puttin On The Ritz" ... Looks like a Fuse Box to me - you'd want lots of these in a city were water might Splash about at any moment, shorting out electicity. One of the various wall decoration props from BS1. In the MMORPG, every one of these things would be interactable with ... Quantumz were capable of doing anything you needed to keep the lame plot going.... Good thing that Booker and Elizabeth didn't need to use these to go through Tears ... After Sofia Lamb was gone, Rapture had a new Overlord ... A Real TV set from around 1960 - Art Deco elements still present. Early attempt at Deep Diving Suit (the standard diving gear which Rapture Big Daddies appear to be wearing) couldn't go much lower than 160 feet down (they are pumped up to counter the pressure of the water, subjecting the occupant to the same pressure as the water at the depth they dive to -- causing the Bends - fatal at increasing depth). Think how much that suit weighs (try walking around in it while OUT of the water ... ) Amusing 'Sea Slug' themed gimmick in Rapture (probably made amusing noises when you clicked those green buttons). Many of Fontaine's/Tenenbaum's/Suchong's ADAM experiments weren't that successful. Yups, them thar Pants can do wunderz ... (''anyone else have the thought that the game mechanics for Infinite BS were kludged together a bit too much ??? '' ) "Bathysphere" off Ryan Amusements - how does it connect to the airlock to get in (when the hatch is in the front ???) I have added docked mini-subs in my MMORPG level maps to be something like this (a use for those round red hatches seen inside). They would have been used for external maintenance tasks and inspections. Funny. Here we have what looks like a crane holding it in place, and we didn't see much like that anywhere else (besides Subs in Smugglers Hideout). The Bathysphere things weigh near 30 tons, and can't float high enough in water to clear the front hatch ...) Stylish pistol. Art Deco AND water-themed !!! Maybe fires poisonous spines of Stingrays? Amazing what you can do simply smearing a little charcoal from a fire onto your Masquerade mask... Face paint or bandages might have been a bit better than putting a Box over your head (DLC's "BOXHEAD" Splicers). New York skyscrapers decade before Rapture. Vertical building is done because of high priced real estate in the city center. Note the stepped 'set back' of the designs (city ordinances were passed to leave space for sunlight to get in - to keep the streets from becoming dark canyons if enclosed solidly by tall buildings). Nothing like a screaming/shrieking Toddler to ruin your day. (Comstock kept Elizabeth locked up in a soundproof "Research Facility" ...) The Luteces HAD to have done research long before Columbia was built. Even Edison (and his staff of 50+ assistants) took a year to create the workable Light Bulb - a rather simple item in itself. Typical Fantasy fiction - if it looks 'Sciencey' it is good enuf. Strange "Printer" things from Minervas Den. The design IMO would be used for some kind of monitoring activity, but would be wasteful having a printer head for EACH of those paper streams, and even just for one paper stream with such limited viewing (the paper stays in the thing ??). The game level artist needed something "computery" (and animated) to decorate walls with, so this is what they came up with. The imagination and humor of the Bioshock's fans are what the MMORPG would count on to make it great. You can collect cats - look I found 2 in Arcadia Why so many dead cats (rather than dogs) around Rapture ? Probably because cats are harder to catch when you want to eat them (and cats, for a longer time, had their use because they killing bothersome vermin - the bane of the Splicer's life). I forget if this was seen in the main game or just the Multi-Player (which would make it dodgier Canon-wise). Proof that Bathyspheres could NOT be Rapture's primary transit/transportation system OR the City would have ceased to function (and soon to exist) quite quickly (when their use was curtailed). The "Bathyspheres" cannot be the mass transit of Rapture, only a more deluxe premium conveyance. They are also not the equivalent of autos or taxis - if anything simply because of their expense. That (real world TV kids) show was made just as Rapture was falling apart. Might've been these things in the Infinite Timeline (if it all wasn't so stupidly contrived) To get away from the Parasites, Ryan even contemplated putting Rapture on the Moon ... Sea Diving HARD SUIT (pressure protecting) design (REAL) from 1882. Maybe Fink could have used these in his quest for his own ADAM Sea Slugs (along with the thousand other things he supposedly managed to reinvent/re-engineer and build). It seems the Big Daddy head configuration was yet another thing simply copied from the past. Don't feed them ADAM and don't get them wet ... ADAM enhancing Cats was NOT a good idea. If they had tried, Columbia could have had a more plausible transit system (waiting half a day for a city block to make its circuite/route is a bit inconvenient). But then its hard to do 'Death from Above' attacks from something like this picture. More strangeness from the imagination of fans. Splicers may have seen strange things like this in their delusional perspective of the world. Vigors were ADAM-based (according to BaS), so widespread use in Columbia should eventually have started showing similar dementia effects. Transportation Building from the 1893 Columbian Exposition. Impressive buildings like this were one of the attractions. Cohen's favorite hard liquor Smuggling tunnel, something like what the tunnel between Smugglers Hideout and Arcadia would've looked like.